His Kind of Trouble (16 page)

Epilogue

Six months later...

T
HE
B
ERRINGER
BROTHERS
SAT
around the conference room table, watching the latest episode of
Ana's Kitchen.
Chance had told them they all had to see the premiere, and no one was arguing.

“She looks happy,” Jonas remarked, and Chance nodded.

“Getting out of the reality TV show was a good decision. This makes her happy, and the show has taken off. She has complete control, though, and does it her way.”

“Knowing Ana, I can't imagine anything else,” Garrett commented.

“You've got that right.”

“I can't believe you got married in Mexico,” Jonas said, shaking his head. “But it sure agrees with you. You look happy, bro.”

Chance grinned. They'd seen no reason not to make it a double wedding with Lucia and Marco.

“You know me. I like to jump right in,” Chance said, knowing that the leap he'd taken with Ana was one of the best risks he'd ever taken in his life. “Listen to this part,” he said, making his brothers stop talking and pay attention.

“Today's show focuses on food for children,” she said, “and how to include your children in your cooking. I became a cook because my mother and my aunt taught me how to work in the kitchen since I was very small. It's a good way to bond with your children and to teach them to cook for themselves, as well as a way for them to exercise their creativity. I look forward to cooking with my own children very soon,” Ana said, making eye contact with the camera in a way that seemed to look right out at them.

All three of his brothers turned to Chance, who sat grinning, waiting to see how long it would take them to get it.

“Uh...does she mean what I thinks she means?” Jonas asked.

“Hell, Chance, I haven't even made it down the aisle yet, and you're going to be a dad?” Garrett said, his own wedding still a month away.

Chance shrugged, bringing out a nice bottle of tequila that he'd gotten south of the border specifically for this occasion.

“What can I say? Ana and I both like an adventure,” he commented. “Lucia will be due around the same time, so it's nice the cousins will be close in age.”

“That's just amazing, man,” Ely said, wrapping his youngest brother in a bear hug.

“Thanks. I wouldn't have seen it coming, either, but Ana's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Too bad Luke couldn't be here. I'll have to call him to let him know,” he said as his brothers congratulated him with a toast.

“Where is he, anyway?” Ely asked, having been away in Montana for several months. “Everything going okay with him?”

“He's gotten up to speed quickly, and we're picking up more white-collar gigs,” Garrett said. “He was acting strange the other day. Asked for some time off, said he needed to go help a friend. It was all he'd say. It seemed like something had shaken him, but he wouldn't say what. Didn't want to talk about it, I guess. I told him to go, take whatever time he needed.”

“I wonder what's up,” Jonas said and then shrugged. “Luke always was a little different. In a good way, but sometimes he's hard to figure. And he's been through a lot. Better now, but maybe you never get over that kind of thing.”

Chance nodded. Luke had everything at one time—wealth, fame, his own investment firm—until one of his employees had lost their job and committed suicide. He'd sold it all then—his shares in his company, his houses, his cars, every last bit of it—and had disappeared for several years. But he'd gotten past that difficult phase. Healed, or seemed to, anyway.

“Well,” Chance said, “as long as he knows he's one of us now, and we watch each other's back. Whatever he needs, we'll be there.”

The brothers raised their glasses to that, to all of their futures and all of the adventures that were surely coming their way.

* * *

L
UKE
B
ERRINGER
HAD
BEEN
sitting outside the school for hours. Days, actually. It didn't make sense, finding her here, but this was where the online trace had brought him. Only Nicky Brooks would run a scam from inside an elementary school. She'd probably hacked into their computer system. Brilliant, really—the FBI didn't tend to look for thieves who used fourth graders' computers.

She had to show up sooner or later. And when she did, he'd have her.

On a silver platter, ideally.

Nicole—Nicky—Brooks was back. He'd been waiting for years for her to pop up on the radar somewhere, and finally, there she was. A glimpse of her on the airport facial-recognition software that Luke's former company had created had pointed him in the right direction.

Luke wondered how long she'd been in Tampa. Had she been this close, practically right under his nose, all along?

Six years since she had slept with him, lied to him and stolen from him.

He'd known about the lying—he just hadn't cared, as she was fantastic in bed. So she hadn't used her real name? So what? A lot of people had secrets, and they had their reasons. He wasn't marrying her; it was just about the sex. Or so he'd thought. For Nicky, it was all about the access.

Oldest trick in the book, and he'd fallen, hook, line and sinker.

But the stealing, that was another thing altogether. She'd stolen information from the company he'd owned then—information that someone else had been blamed for stealing.

It had ruined a life. Taken a life.

Luke's fault, because he hadn't looked deeply enough until later. As he'd dug into the theft, he'd found who had really committed the crime.

And she was long gone.

So he'd waited. Set traps, gone about his life.

He knew he'd find her one day, and he'd make sure she paid.

“And there you are,” he said to himself, watching as she finally walked out of the building, sexy and confident as ever. In black pants and a white blouse—not exactly high fashion for Nicky—yet she was still all long legs and sexy swagger.

He felt his body respond and harden—it was difficult not to react to the sight of her, though he told himself it was just the anticipation of bringing her down. Making her pay. He was going to send her to jail, and he had the proof to make it happen. Only then could he truly make peace with the past.

“What scheme are you running now, Nicky?” he said softly in the empty car as he eyed her approach a snow-white Mustang parked near the curb.

Nicky always had style. He'd give her that.

Though that style was sacrificed to whatever scam she was running, it appeared, as she headed instead across the small lot to her car, a Toyota that had seen better days. Nicky loved hot cars, and it must be killing her to drive that pile of scrap, he thought with a small smile. Whatever it was she was after, she must want it bad. A long con of some sort to put this much work into her cover.

Pulling out of the lot, she headed down the palm-tree-lined street, and Luke waited a few seconds, then pulled out behind, following.

They headed down busy streets, through several lights and turns over the causeway out of the city, until Luke thought perhaps she'd made him and was trying to lose the tail. Then she pulled into the short driveway of a small block home at the edge of the intercoastal and got out of her car. Sighing, she looked tired as she reached in the back and hauled out her large bags, tugging them over her shoulder and heading to the door.

The cottage was cute, probably a rental. Totally not her style. Whitewashed cinderblock encased big windows and a terra-cotta roof that had a lot of charm, especially with the two towering palm trees providing shade in the front yard, but not much luxury. Whatever Nicky was up to, she was lying low.

Well, the jig was up. Luke got out of his car. He wasn't going to risk having her slip from his grasp one more time.

As he crossed the street and approached the house, he noted the name Grant on the pelican-shaped mailbox and smirked. Was she stealing someone's real identity? Someone who actually lived here but was out of town?

But then a neighbor emerged from the yard next door, an older woman who smiled and called out to Vanessa, and Nicky turned, bestowing a smile on the woman. They started talking about something that Luke couldn't make out, and he walked down the side of the Toyota to wait behind the corner of the house until Nicky was alone again.

Just then, Luke noted the wire that ran across the inside of one of her windows...and the tool marks on the sill that showed someone had come in and out through that entry point.

The wire came from the top of the window down to the sill, and appeared to head toward the door. Luke had seen that type of wiring before, and his mind stilled as he looked through the window and noted what looked like two bricks taped to the walls inside the door, attached to the wire.

Luke cursed.

As he heard Nicky call out a goodbye and thanks to her neighbor, he turned the corner of the house.

“Nicky!”

She didn't seem to hear him, intent on opening the door as she picked up her bags and once again started to insert her key into the lock on the door.

He heard the click, heard the turn of the knob as she opened it and then the whoosh from inside as he ran up the steps and tackled her, pulling her over the railing with him. They both landed hard on the grass, but they were still too close.

“What—” she gasped, wincing as he pulled her roughly up. They only had seconds, literally, as the door swung open. Maybe less.

“Nicky! Nicole,
move,
” he ordered when she didn't move, pulling her from the grass and making her run with him down past a cement wall where they could take cover.

Damned if anyone was going to kill her before he got her to jail.

The blast was deafening and knocked them both flat, heat searing the air around them as the house went up in a mass of flames.

The heat receded, and Luke rose, taking a look, and heard the sirens just a second later.

Nicky lay on the cement, scraped, pale and staring in shock.

“What the hell is going on, Nicky?” he asked, sitting up. Sirens screamed in the background.

She looked at him, pale and confused. He would have thought she was faking if the physical evidence wasn't there—the trembling, the pallor, the way her pupils were too dilated. Her breath was coming too fast, and he shook his head. Nicole had never been easy to shake, but maybe nearly getting blown up did the trick.

“Take deep breaths, try to calm down,” he instructed harshly. “I need you to stay conscious, Nic, so you can make it to jail today instead of the hospital.”

“Mrs. Shaw!” she yelled, as if she hadn't even heard him. She stood, running back toward the house. “Mrs. Shaw!” she yelled, and it took Luke a second to realize she must be calling out to her neighbor.

Nicky ran hazardously close to the flames as she raced inside the porch of her neighbor's home, and Luke followed.

“Oh, no,” Nicky cried, finding the older woman passed out on the front yard.

“Let me see,” Luke said harshly, pushing Nicky aside to check the older woman's pulse. “Her pulse is good, but call an ambulance, Nic.”

She blinked at him, those big blue eyes clouding over. “Who are you? Why did my house explode, and why were you there, and why do you keep calling me Nicky?”

Luke barked out a harsh laugh. “Give me a break. Don't you remember me? Way to hurt a guy's feelings after the things we did together,” he said, sending her a humorless leer.

Her cheeks showed the first signs of color, her eyes snapping.

“I don't know who you are or what you're talking about, but I know for sure I've never done
anything
with you,” she said, outraged.

Nice act. The lack of recognition on her face was downright artful. Honed by years of practicing her craft of deception. Apparently she was going to play this to the end.

He nodded to the house. “Looks like someone else found you, just like I did. And as usual, more innocents left in your path, hurt because of what you do, Nicky.”

She stood up shakily, looking at him as if he must be mad, shaking her head. Luke grabbed for her, but she was too fast, moving quickly down the sidewalk as police cars pulled up to the curb. In the distance, more sirens wailed, probably the EMTs. Luke stayed with the older woman, who had started to come to again, and he murmured something comforting to her as he watched Nicky talk to the cops.

She was beautiful, even with her less-than-glamorous schoolteacher look, and the police were happy to help. Of course. Nicky knew her way around a man like Marco Polo knew the Silk Road.

They wouldn't listen to him now, but he had proof that would make sure they listened later. An officer approached him.

“We'll need you to come to the station, sir. As a witness, of course,” he said, but Luke could tell by his look that Nicole had already worked her magic, casting an aura of suspicion over him.

“No problem, Officer. Here are my credentials, and I'll be happy to cooperate in any way I can,” he said, handing the man his license and his Berringer Bodyguard ID. “I think this young woman should be brought in, too, for her own safety. You're going to find that this explosion was no accident. I saw the wiring in the window just before she opened the door.”

The officer looked at him, his ID and then at Nicole, who frowned. Luke met her confused gaze; whatever game she thought she could play, he could play better. He'd been thinking about this for years. Savoring the idea of the moment he could take her down.

As the EMTs arrived and took over with Mrs. Shaw, he waved away their concern for him, keeping his eye on Nicky as they examined her by the roadside. Her face was streaked with tears as the initial shock wore off and emotional response set in. If he didn't know the truth, he'd truly feel sorry for her.